Am I middle-aged? At 50, the answer is surely yes, isn’t it? Or is it? If I’m not middle-aged, then I must be either old or young. To claim that I am still young is obviously preposterous. Possibly, in another 50 years, when we’re all living to 100, being 50 may (just about) legitimately be

A new book suggests that the falling rate of marriage (actually it’s gone back up a bit in recent years, but over the long run couples are much less likely to tie the knot in 2015 than they were in 1975) can be explained by male fear. Fear of a future divorce. Fear that divorce will make them lose

With spring now well under way, I have, in the nick of time, just weighed in at precisely 14st. A year ago, I was nudging 16. Even as recently as Christmas, I was 15-plus. And now I’m down to 14 – that’s less than 200lb or (for the youngsters) not even 90kg. Reader, I’m worried I may be wasting

If I ever feel the pressing need to discuss erectile dysfunction with a bunch of blokes in a pub, I know where to go: the Lord Nelson on the Isle of Dogs, east London. Cameras rigged up by Channel 4 in that hostelry — in advance of a programme to be broadcast this week — reveal that tricky sexual

Today’s effort is my 665th offering in this space. I mention this figure because I once saw a guy – in the Florida Keys, if I’m not mistaken – wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the very same number. And underneath that number was written “the neighbour of the beast”, which is why such an apparently

I’ll tell you something that really irritates me, and that’s people, sadly increasing in number, who say, as if they’re imparting a slice of hard-won, world-weary, seen-it-all wisdom, that they aren’t bothered about elections. That they’re not going to vote because, come on, they’re all the same

Sir Roger Moore, it seems, reckons Idris Elba, the bookies’ favourite to be the next James Bond, would be “unrealistic” in the role because he is not “English-English”. That is, Moore admits in the same interview, despite Bond having been played by a Scot, a Welshman and an Irishman. (And indeed

No fighting this week. Instead, you find me knee-deep in another, more regular, more prosaic yet rather more taxing challenge – the one presented by the annual Crampton family compressed celebration season. Dominating the second half of March, this period encompasses first my daughter’s, then my

To be fair to David Beckham, he did not say he lets his wife dress him “99 per cent of the time”. Nor did he say Victoria selected “99 per cent” of his wardrobe. What he said was that when she offered advice on a proposed outfit, he took it “99 per cent of the time”. Big difference, that. A man

As a husband and father, you never value your mother-in-law so highly as when your children are very small. Which is why, despite rumours of growing royal impatience with Carole Middleton’s frequent presence in both his homes, Prince William will, I am certain, feel nothing but relief every time he